Plenty to carp about in search for the barbel

The Gosport Globe’s Kevin Richards and father-in-law Dave Hancock continue their summmer fishing series with an adventure in Newark on Trent, hoping to catch up with a fiesty freshwater opponent…

Bobs Island

THE first ‘port of call’ on the trail of the legendary barbel was the well-known River Trent destination of Bobs Island, with many fish coming out of the stretch at up to 19lbs each.

But unfortunately for the two of us on this 24-hour river bank stake out we caught nothing except roach, gudgeon and perch. So we decided to to try a new location on our tour of fishing in Newark and go to the famous A1 Pits the next day.

A1 Pits

On to A1 Pits we go having planned another 24-hour session. With virtually every single peg gone on the river we finally find a nice double peg available with some nice features to target. But there’s a snag. On the opposite bank there are carp fishermen launching bait into the river. Automatically, we were against it but still managed to pick up good perch on my new Korum Glide float rod.

Maltkiln Lane Fishery

After two days of fruitless searching for the barbel we decided to go to a small stretch of river where we had previously got results on a fishing trip to Newark earlier  this year. So we went down to Maltkiln Lane Fishery where, inside 10 minutes, we had the first barbel on the line and a further two followed that evening ranging from 7lbs to 10lbs on large Hinders Elips pellets, with another 2lb specimen coming out the following day.

The lessons learned

What did we learn from fishing in Newark for barbel, there are some fantastic stretches of river on the Trent with great people there. If you know the water is low and clear you can expect it to be very hard going. But if you get that barbel run it will be worth every second of the hours that you may have had to wait for it!